Night Call

We’re joined by Lazor Wulf writer Nikki Mayard to wrap up The Vow with a nylon sash. Why did the editors save all the men’s rights stuff for the 8th episode? Did seeing Keith Raniere go full Frank TJ Mackey explain how people got so deep into this cult? Did he also maybe murder a bunch of women? Who is the best Vow character: Mark, Sarah, Catherine or Nippy? How privileged do you have to be to get into this kind of group? Will season 2 explain it all or just make everyone more frustrated? Then it’s another edition of Pyramid Pals with a great call and email about our fave buildings. What’s the deal with ancient mounds? What is the best corporate pyramid, and should we save corporate pyramids from the wrecking ball or let them be lost to time? All this and more on a new Night Call!Notes:Nikki Mayard's TwitterNikki's InstagramDid Keith Raniere poison his girlfriends?Lazor Wulf on HBOMaxCahokia Mounds CLUI pyramids listCenter of the World pyramid& moreSteelcase/Switch pyramid& walkthroughApex pyramid Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week on Night Call we have Sadie Dupuis aka Sad13 as our guest! But first it's an update to Pyramid Pals with a call about a recently demolished but also fairly recently built glass walled pyramid for a pharmaceutical company. Why wouldn't Amazon want to operate out of this futuristic pyramid building out of a dystopian movie, too on the nose? Then we're joined by Sadie to discuss haunted portraits, haunted studios in Texas, and isolation tanks (probably also haunted).Notes:Richardsonian RomanesqueMassachusetts pyramid pic MA pyramid demo videoMiles Klee on 12' skeletonsRyan WhiteStew Leonard's animatronicsHaunted PaintingSadie's haunted painting inspoCarradine doppelgangerNo music for ICE campaignSonic RanchTornillo hauntingsSadie's website DOT HORSESadie's twitterSadie's 'gram Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Emily is back with tales from the Pyramids of Wyoming and Nevada: the railroad ghost town of the Ames Monument, and driving past the current ghost town of Las Vegas glimpsing the Luxor Pyramid after whispers that MGM plans to blow it up soon. Then it's all calls and emails, starting with another call about the New Age to Q Anon phenomenon (Q Age). After that a listener in Australia calls in to talk about climate change around the globe, and why AQI (Air Quality Index) sites are all over the place. A night email about a public art project involving payphones leads to a pleasant discovery about its purpose. We finish up with time travel paradoxes, real and created by people on drugs, to talk about Twelve Monkeys and what you'd warn people about if you travelled back to January 2020. NotesAmes Monument Blowing up the Luxor"Conspirituality" Purple AirFutel phones Cicada 3301Futel site The Call Center Marina Abramovic Microsoft ad Time travel paradox "Sinbad's Shazaam"Evil eye pendants  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Emily is on the road again, so it's just Tess and Molly this week taking calls calls calls, calls from the public! First we get a call from a listener debating whether or not to go to a family wedding. We talk about the no-win situation that is Coronavirus weddings - what to do when your family won't cancel, and why everyone should cancel big family events this fall and winter if possible even if they put money down. Then it's Spanky's, the secret Los Angeles afterhours speakeasy that went viral for sending out this email: “Somewhere in Los Angeles, we’ve curated a small intimate space where friends, lovers, bartenders and bootleggers, DJs, musicians, wanna-be celebrities, drug dealers and baristas, pimps, prostitutes and Johns can come together and reacquaint ourselves with the nightlife that we once loved and lost.” Would you go to a sketchy after hours listed at a location that turns up as a random houseless section of Mulholland Drive thrown by promoters who are known creeps? Then it's Altered States!!! Ken Russell's 1980 drug nightmare comes to life through our words. Now more than ever we need movies about sexy druggy academic types putting themselves in drug induced dream states to push it to the limit. Tess and Molly talk about whether we'd get in the isolation tank, with or without William Hurt, Bob Balaban, and Blair Brown, and why Total Recall raves and San Junipero type digital escapism are so appealing right now. Take some mushrooms in a cave and get in the tank with NIGHT CALL! Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A listener calls in with a harrowing tale of getting pressured into going to Disney World and then having a panic attack immediately afterwards. We discuss the prevalence of lockdown cabin fever leading to risky decisions immediately followed by intense regret. Then we get into The Social Dilemma on Netflix, and why we didn’t really like it. For the second half we are joined by writer Justin Charity for a reunion of Emily’s pod It’s Cool To Like Anime to chat about Psycho-Pass and more.Noteselemental article about covid transmissioncriticism of the social dilemmajustin charity at the ringersound only at apple podcaststravis scott x mcdonaldspsycho-pass season 1 trailerergo proxy trailer Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

First it’s a night call about Esoteric Catholicism! Then we get into The Vow more deeply. In the second half we are joined by Samer Kalaf from Defector to discuss haunted New Hampshire and haunted new media. Then we get a truly weird tip about a youtube user named sweet peach and speculate about what the hell these weird animated videos are attempting to do. Plus the conspiracy about frequencies that make you go crazy and the trend of online it girls succumbing to conspiracy theories.Notes How to tell if you're in a high control group Camp Nowhere To Be Magnetic  Subscribe to Defector defector.com Defector Twitter twitter.com/defectormedia Samer's Twitter twitter.com/samer An assortment of chihuahuas: tororo/maguro Popo and Pom Sweet Peach Youtube Reddit thread on SP Webdriver Torso NH Magazine ghost article Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tom Cruise’s crazy trip to the movies to see Tenet prompts Night Call’s finest thoughts on Christopher Nolan’s latest movie that none of us have seen. Then we investigate Halo, the Amazon device that says it can read emotions, and debunk its dubious, dangerous claims. Two listeners provide us with their very different experiences with Kratom, off last week’s discussion. Then we are joined by food writer Katherine Spiers of Smart Mouth podcast and newsletter to talk about community fridge projects in LA, the immorality of food waste, the Black Panthers’ breakfast program, and how to support small local restaurants when the government has failed everyone during a pandemic. On an all new Night Call!NOTES Tom Cruise Tenet tweet  Tenet review  AV Club on going to theaters  The Vow  The Verge breaks down the Amazon Halo  Fitbit and coronavirus  Smart Mouth podcast Smart Mouth newsletter  Katherine Spiers on Twitter  NYC community fridges  LAist on community fridges Food insecurity during COVID  Los Angeles Community Fridges instagram  The People's Bodega  The People's Bodega NYC Black Panthers free breakfast program LA Taco  We Like LA  Luv2eat  Ruen Pair  Desano Pizza  Zen Mei  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Molly and Emily delve into the world of kratom, the Midwest’s favorite legal drug! What is kratom and why are opioid users using it to get off opiods? Molly’s tales of caffeine psychosis. Will Emily try kratom for the pod? The outlook is good! For the second half we are joined by Tess and special guest tech journalist Nitasha Tiku to talk about unfriendly AI, the singularity, the paperclip experiment, the dark enlightenment and more! Why racist workplace culture thrives in Silicon Valley, and how employees get punished for calling it out. Are the promised imminent human linked neural networks just gonna be more vaporware? Who is Roko and what is their basilisk? Bad machine learning, racism at Pinterest, and other algorithmic fables about the limits of rationalism, on a new Night Call! Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We take a night call about Evangelion and neurotic artificial intelligence from a listener that gives Emily a great excuse to explain Eva to Molly and Tess. Then it’s the saga of Jordan and Mikalya Peterson, the Canadian father daughter grifter team. All meat diets, gothic intrigue, Russian doctors inducing comas for benzo withdrawal, the Numa Numa song and maybe even...murder? For the second half of the show we are joined by writer and comedian Joan Ford to talk about her new Twitch show Fall Talk, cosplaying as girlboss Michael Myers, and why Halloween starts in August this year (hint: it’s a lot like the fireworks surplus). Get cozy with a pumpkin spice latte and your favorite Halloween candy for an all new Night Call!FOOTNOTESEvangelion wiki on the Magi supercomputers https://wiki.evageeks.org/MagiOut of This World https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out_of_This_World_(TV_series)Peterson and pronouns https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-37875695Peterson family meat diet https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/08/the-peterson-family-meat-cleanse/567613/Jordan Peterson explainer thread https://twitter.com/RationalDis/status/1293292933807058948Cider of doom https://www.reddit.com/r/enoughpetersonspam/comments/8x1tgw/jordan_peterson_drinks_apple_cider_causing_him_to/Herman Cain "boo!" https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/13/herman-cain-twitter-democrats-joe-bidenJoan Haley Ford https://twitter.com/joanhaleyford/Joan on Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/joanhaleyfordEarly Halloween candy https://www.thrillist.com/news/nation/halloween-candy-hitting-stores-early-2020Fall Talk premiere link https://twitter.com/joanhaleyford/status/1294025388104904704 Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A night call from a data scientist offers more accurate information about how our phones are “listening” to us. Then we take a road trip of the mind to the haunted Clown Motel in Tonopah, Nevada and find out why the graveyard next door is doubly haunted for reasons not related to clowns (hint: plague).Then a night email prompts a fun chat about the sentience of A.I. as Molly puts forth the theory that the A.I. revolution could be stopped by making the robots neurotic. Another email endorses delicious fresh milk. For the second half we get back into Italian Futurism and end up talking about the Bon Appetit debacle and the politics of food. After a serious discussion about food and fascism it’s cocktail time as Emily, Molly and Tess reveal our favorite non-milk beverages for the summer, both alcoholic and non. All this and Excited Pig, on an all new Night Call!Footnotes: Apophenia  Privacy International on Bluetooth tracing  More on Bluetooth beacons  Clown Motel Old Tonopah Cemetary  1905 newspaper article on Tonopah plague  Italian Futurism  Bon Appetit exodus Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We start off with a night call about whether your phone camera knows which part of a photo you’re looking at (it does). More chat about phones and surveillance leads to Elon Musk’s Neuralink and a discussion of futurism (both kinds) and transhumanists. Then we get a night email from a listener in Key West about the bind faced by tourist towns with reopening. Emily makes a case for seeing the ocean safely. Then we are joined by comedian and podcaster Brandi Brown (The Bill Corbett Show) who tells us everything you want to know about the Minnesota State Fair, butter busts, her ongoing State Fair related feud with Amy Klobuchar and much more.Foot Notes Neuralink in Tech Crunch  Musk worrying about AI  Thiel worrying about AI  Brandi on Twitter Grain entrapment  Unofficial rundown of crop art rules  Princess Kay of the Milky Way  Klobuchar's state fair debacle  Seed Queen: The Story of Crop Art and the Amazing Lillian Colton  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Emily returns with tales of a haunted hotel she stayed at in Mobile, Alabama. Then it's the #babywitches who hexed the moon, followed by a listener email about the queer Sapphic aesthetics of cottagecore. This of course leads into some discussion of Taylor Swift's new album Folklore, and how in a way it's always fall right now. We read a listener email about the struggles of international students right now, and another about working in a plastic surgery clinic during the pandemic. Then the girls are joined by Meredith Whittaker - Research Professor and Co-founder of the AI Now Institute at NYU. After working at Google for over thirteen years Meredith helped lead the Google Walkouts to end AI contracts with the Department Of Defense. We talk to Meredith about racism in tech, the biased badness of algorithms, and the human beings behind most "artificial intelligence." And, of course, Robocop. How can we organize to prevent tech companies from say, building war machines for the government? Plus one hot but easy tip for avoiding facial recognition software at protests. All this on the all new Night Call!Footnotes: Haunted Malaga Inn  Moon hex explained  Marianne Williamson moon hex tweet Why are people angry at witches on tik tok?  Paper Mag on cottagecore Correction: Sean Penn's COVID test is CORE, not Curative Meredith and the Google walkout  Facial recognition/surveillance in schools Meredith testifying before Congress The AI Now Institute  Meredith Whittaker on Twitter  Tech Workers Coalition  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A night call from a teacher about the back to school catch 22 facing all teachers and students right now. Tess blows the lid off the secret pandemic pod tutoring circuit. Then it’s the rebooted Unsolved Mysteries and the Howie Mandel Tik Tok teen conspiracy! Is Howie okay? Has Howie ever been okay? A night email about the club at the top of the Baltimore hotel featured in the new Unsolved Mysteries, and the Berkshires UFO sighting of 1969. For the second half we are joined by Jay Kang from the Time To Say Goodbye podcast to go deep on the NBA Bubble in our special sports segment Night Ball/Sports Call! Jay explains the NBA Bubble and we discuss why it’s such a bad idea from a labor angle and whether they’ll make it through the season. And we answer an Orlando-centric theme park question about the Aerosmith Rock N Roller Coaster at Disneyworld. We also take some questions for Jay related to his infamous Diva Rankings, and revisit them to see if he’s changed his mind about some of his more controversial positions on divas. (Emily will be back next week after completing leg one of her cross country road trip to see her mom.) All this and sports gambling on an all new Night Call! Wealthy parents forming pods with private tutors  More on how tutors and pods can contribute to education inequality Howie Mandel's Tiktok  Baldiyadi, the Tiktok user who brought attention to Mandel's weirder videos  Message in a Bottle  Berkshires UFO Rock n Rollercoaster  Nights in White Satin dark ride  Time to Say Goodbye, Jay's podcast  Jay on Twitter Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We kick it off with a night email from an anonymous listener working at an unnamed theme park about how unsafe reopening is. Then Emily explains “Dark Academia” the college themed Tik Tok teen trend that feels extra dystopian now that school reopenings are being threatened for the fall. Then we are joined by special guest writer Hannah Giorgis from The Atlantic to discuss Polish erotic thriller and viral hit 365 Days! Does this movie resurrect the erotic thriller as Night Call has been hoping it would? Or is it just a Polish rip off of 50 Shades Of Grey? Why would people flock to an erotic streamer like 365 Days during lockdown? Plus what are the sexiest movies and what have we all been watching lately? The mind reels, on an all new Night Call!FOOTNOTES Scream inside your heart  21 Pilots PPP loan  Dark Academia  Cottagecore  Harvard's online tuition  Belle Delphine Ursula le Guin Hannah's piece on 365 Days 50 Shades/365 Days connection Duffy's open letter  Background on Duffy's kidnapping (TW: rape)  Hannah on Twitter  Hannah at The Atlantic  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The girls are joined by writer Ezekiel Kweku for the top half this week. A Ghislaine news roundup and some television show fueled speculation about why Ms. Maxwell was staying in New Hampshire. Then it’s Randonautica, the creepy geocaching app taking Tik Tok by storm. Would any of us be game to follow a set of random directions to potentially enchanting surprise locations? Or does that sound like the worst idea ever? Then it’s a deep dive on the American flag with noted flag expert Ezekiel. Can the flag be reclaimed for good or is it out of bounds forever? For the second half of the show, Super Producer Joelle Monique joins us as we talk about Paul Verhoeven’s satirical adaptation of Robert Heinlen’s Starship Troopers. Is an obvious critique, like Verhoeven’s critique of fascism in Starship Troopers, always implicit in images or will it always go over some people’s heads? Does good intent matter if your image goes viral out of context as a GIF? Fascism, flags, and flaming bugs on an all new Nighy Call!FOOTNOTES Ezekiel's website Randonautica at The Cut Randonautica at Vice Ezekiel on Twitter Flag Tumblr Jasper Johns flag Sarah Rahbar flag Stanley Forman flag Ezekiel on the history of flags in Black protest art (for MTV News) Ezekiel's DJ twitch stream Starship Troopers trivia Verhoeven interview in Empire Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.